Half of America Has Already Legalized Pot

The residents of the half of the states have the right to use medical marijuana after Republican Governor of Ohio, John Kasich, signed the legislation this week, allowing patients with defined medical conditions to use weed as treatment. Ohio is the 25th state to legalize marijuana, not counting Washington, D.C. It is still too early to talk about federal marijuana legalization, though we can see absolute progress. Ohio’s legislation forbids the residents to smoke or cultivate medical marijuana, though patients with cancer, epilepsy, severe chronic pains, and other health conditions are allowed to vapor marijuana or consume it in the form of edibles. The law in Ohio will take effect in three months, at which time the patients will have the right to go to Michigan or Pennsylvania, where weed is legalized, in order to get marijuana and bring it back across the state lines. The state is also starting a two-year program to create a licensed system of cultivating, testing, and dispensing medical marijuana. According to the Quinnipiac University survey, 84% of Ohio voters support the legalization of marijuana. In 2015, the state voters overwhelmingly rejected the law on marijuana legalization in the state. Although the majority of the residents approve recreational marijuana legalization, the legislation would have created an absolute monopoly in marijuana cultivation. Because of the decriminalization of marijuana in Ohio, pot possession is now classified as a minor misdemeanor and is not punished with imprisonment, unlike Arizona, where the fines reach $150,000.

What about legalization of marijuana at the federal level?

Unfortunately or luckily, medical marijuana remains illegal from the federal point of view and is classified as a Schedule I drug with no medical value. Generally, such classification means that marijuana is more dangerous than such drugs as cocaine, opium, morphine, and codeine. It is absurd, do you not think so? People who are opposed to the marijuana legalization claim that the marijuana’s classification should not be changed because of the lack of large-scale studies that would determine its effects on people.

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